TELEVISION

TELEVISION; This Season Our Chef Is Offering Debt and Agita

Published: April 18, 2004

IN the first season of the NBC reality series ''The Restaurant,'' America got to watch as Rocco DiSpirito, the buff, 30-something chef of the Manhattan restaurant Union Pacific, opened his dream trattoria, Rocco's on 22nd. It wasn't pretty: the six-episode summer series, created by Mark Burnett -- the producer behind ''Survivor'' and ''The Apprentice'' -- showcased the many difficulties of getting started, from construction delays to staff mutinies to kitchen fires to the demands of Mr. DiSpirito's financial backer, Jeffrey Chodorow.

At the start of the second season, which begins tomorrow night, things look brighter. Five months after its opening day, Rocco's on 22nd is bustling, and Mr. DiSpirito is famous. But the restaurant is over half a million dollars in the hole and seems to want for the celebrity chef's presence. The drama narrows to a conflict between Mr. DiSpirito and Mr. Chodorow, who threatens to take over the restaurant with his own management staff.

Since those episodes were filmed, the story has tumbled off the screen and into the courts. On Feb. 9, Mr. Chodorow filed suit against Mr. DiSpirito, claiming he ''has not devoted the time and effort needed to operate the restaurant in a financially responsible manner.'' In response, Mr. DiSpirito filed a counterclaim on April 5 seeking $6 million for ''repeated and manifold breaches of contractual and fiduciary obligations.''

On April 8, The New York Times convened a panel of Manhattan restaurateurs to watch and discuss the first two episodes of the second season of ''The Restaurant.'' Interviewed by Matt and Ted Lee, the panelists were Joe Allen, owner of Joe Allen and Orso; Lidia Bastianich, chef and co-owner of Felidia and Becco, and the star of the public television series ''Lidia's Italian-American Table''; Julian Niccolini, managing partner of the Four Seasons Restaurant; and Jonathan Waxman, chef and an owner of Barbuto. Coffee and assorted pastries were served; Mr. Niccolini brought popcorn.

TED LEE -- Is this an accurate portrayal of a New York restaurant?

JONATHAN WAXMAN -- Let's face it -- this is not a New York restaurant. It could be in Universal Studios, on the backlot. They took someone who's really good-looking, knows how to cook, is intelligent, articulate and well respected in his community, and put him into an artificial situation. It's a total fabrication -- it was designed as a TV set, it wasn't designed as a restaurant.

JOE ALLEN -- You can't not know you're on camera, and it has to alter your behavior. It's like a kid's game called ''Restaurant Business.''

LIDIA BASTIANICH -- I think the show's approach to analyzing the business was pretty realistic. You base a restaurant on three percentages: labor, food cost and overhead. Those are the elements where a restaurant can fail, and you need to look at them. I found that quite true.

JULIAN NICCOLINI -- I'm totally surprised that this restaurant in five months lost $600,000. What were they doing? Handing out money at the desk? Come on!

MATT LEE -- What in particular seems fake?

ALLEN -- The kitchen is like the Queen Elizabeth -- it's huge!

BASTIANICH -- This chitter-chatter that goes on between the workers? That's for the benefit of the camera. That doesn't happen in a real restaurant. Everybody has their station, everybody does their work.

WAXMAN -- If a restaurant is that busy, the waiters don't have time to talk like that.

MATT LEE -- But do New York restaurants as they really are have enough inherent drama to sustain a television show?

BASTIANICH -- Restaurants represent the energy of a culture, what society wants socially. I think the audience out there wants to see, wants to know more, wants to be a part of it, but I think it has to be set up to be a show like ''Friends.'' It just does a disservice because as an industry -- and Rocco knows this, because he's a professional -- this is not how we operate serious restaurants.

TED LEE -- In what ways, specifically?

BASTIANICH -- Specifically in the respect that you have for what you do, for the employees, how you present yourself. You just don't troop in and out. You arrange meetings, you meet, you sit down, everybody attends.

WAXMAN -- Restaurants themselves are very good entertainment spots. They don't need the uber-reality of the television camera, so the intrusiveness of that is very strange. ''The Restaurant'' makes us look a little foolish actually, I'm sorry, but it does.

ALLEN -- It's terrible. It's shabby, terrible soap opera. It has nothing to do with life. What's real drama in a real restaurant is when the line cook cuts his finger and St. Clare's ambulance comes out front, and they take him away.

NICCOLINI -- The open kitchen concept, that's great reality. Jonathan Waxman was the first one to bring it to the East Coast. How many people go to a restaurant just because there's an open kitchen, so they see what the chef is doing, they can see all the action that's happening? That's really reality.

MATT LEE -- In the new episodes, customers keep asking ''Where's Rocco?'' -- and so do the staff and the management. Meanwhile you see Mr. DiSpirito on a talk show or at a book signing. Does a chef, even a celebrity chef, have to be on hand all the time?

WAXMAN -- When people go to our restaurants, they want to see us. That's part of the excitement of going to the restaurant. Hopefully, our employees take on a bit of our personas.